The Bangladesh Football Federation officially launched the ‘Vision 2022: Road to Qatar World Cup’ project by handing out two-year contracts to Dutch coaches
Lodewijk de Kruif and Rene Koster at the BFF House on Thursday.
The Dutch duo arrived in Dhaka on Thursday morning and signed the contract papers before the announcement was made.
As per the contract, de Kruif and Koster will take charge of the national team from July 1 ahead of the forthcoming SAFF Championship in Nepal in September.
Head coach de Kruif expressed his surprise to see the project initiated by the governing body and he promised his assistance to the BFF to make it come true.
‘We are surprised to see the BFF’s initiative of Vision 2022. It’s a very good initiative and we should support that,’ said the Dutch coach.
‘I want to give thanks to the BFF from both of us for inviting us in Bangladesh and finalising our contract. We are thankful to the BFF for giving us the opportunity to watch the Super Cup. We will see our players again and scout a little bit extra and come to a final decision about our selection,’ said de Kruif.
He was also confident about employing the right technique to Bangladesh football. ‘It’s not possible if you don’t start. It’s a long journey. Still nine years to go. So it’s of course possible,’ de Kruif added.
‘We want to implement the Dutch way of football and that is how we will start it. That will how the process will go and we are very curious about it. Players will watch to see how we are doing.’
‘We have had a little bit of experience with the team playing in Nepal [AFC Challenge Cup qualifiers]. In the short period of time what we can say is that the players were very willing and adopted well, they wanted to change something and they wanted to put their name somewhere in the book.’
‘There is a very good attitude and the people from the federation are very eager and very fanatic to get the result.’
‘The cooperation is very good because we shared the same way of thinking that will help,’ said de Kruif, who was named as the 16th foreign coach in the history of Bangladesh football.
BFF president Kazi Salahuddin was hopeful of realising the dream of qualifying for the Qatar World Cup in 2022.
‘From today [Thursday], we started our process for the Vision project with two foreign coaches and all the committees are working together with the football federation. Today we prom
ise that we will qualify for the 2022 World Cup.
We are ready to do everything to make it happen,’ he said.
Assistant coach Koster will be assigned to the youth football academy in Sylhet. The academy is not yet fully ready and Salahuddin blamed the National Sports Council for the delay.
‘The government sanctioned me the money four of five months ago to repair the Sylhet academy which they gave it to the NSC. Finance minister [Abul Maal Abdul Muhith] gave them the money for some renovation work,’ said Salahuddin.
‘I don’t know why they [NSC] didn’t start work yet. The NSC secretary
knows better why the academy is not ready yet. I can’t deal with him [NSC secretary] anymore so I don’t have anything to say about that,’ Salahuddin said angrily.
-With New Age input